The most important thing on your website

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, October 10, 2011

Your organization's website is one the most significant brand elements you own. It is your home base online, it is where you can tell your story and accept transactions, and it is ultimately where you want to drive traffic.

Many of the social media touch points you maintain are excellent ways to create awareness of your organization and draw in traffic, but ultimately the goal should be to invite them to end up on your website, where you can deepen the relationship and publish more information.

Many times, organizations will spend a lot of time on certain elements of their websites, including design (very important), functionality (also very important), and technology (extremely important). However, there is one thing that frequently gets lost in the shuffle. It's something that is (in my opinion) the most important thing on your website. It's something that gets talked about in a few cursory conversations and then usually gets glossed over. It's something that has the power to affect traffic, conversions, and sales, and yet it frequently gets pushed to the back burner.

So what is it?

It's content. For some reason, website content is the black sheep of the website creation process. It usually takes a back seat to design, planning, features, etc. but content is the "meat" of your online presence. It's what can persuade your website visitors to take action. It's what Google indexes so other people can find you. It's what shapes the design.

Content is not just text. Content also comes in the form of photography and video. High quality photography can make a good web presence great. Video can also tell a story in a way that text sometimes cannot.

Ask any designer and he or she will tell you that having good content in advance will lead to a better design. Content gives designers the framework around which to build a great web presence.

Content should not be ignored or left until the end to "fill in." Whether it's created internally or outsourced, content should be planned, written, and polished before a website project begins. In my opinion, it's the most important part of your website.

Generating leads: 3 effective (and slightly scary) ways to do it

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, October 3, 2011

Building your prospect database is hard work. It takes time, effort, and a systematic approach. In order to generate leads, your organization must first have an audience and that audience grows when your database grows.

Both businesses and non-profits should make growing a database a high priority. Businesses convert prospects to customers while non-profits convert prospects to donors or members. Sometimes organizations build multiple databases depending on context and channel, and can include email lists, online communities, CRMs, social media profiles, and customer profiles.

The bigger the database, the more people you can talk therefore increasing the number of potential leads you may be able to acquire. Obviously, building and growing a database is a good thing. Unfortunately, a lot of organizations resort to tired techniques like shouting "please please please like us on Facebook!" or dumping every business card they get from networking events into their email newsletter (spammy) or worse yet, dumping their local chamber spreadsheets into an email marketing system (really spammy). While these techniques can provide some value, they are not sustainable and can sometimes backfire (getting blacklisted as a result of spamming people can be a pain).

So how do you effectively and aggressively build a database of leads? Better yet, how do you build a database of people who actually want to hear from you?

1. Maintain an e-learning portal. Set up an online community of video content and boldly give away lots and lots of free information. You heard me: give it away. Set it up so that people need to register in order to view the content and then fill it with useful, full-length webinars and videos that teach your constituents things of value that will help them. Give them a 30-second preview first so they get a sense of what their getting. A lot of people get freaked out by the concept of giving away so much information but in order to attract subscribers, you need to provide a lot of value. Take a look at SpinWeb's Learning Center as an example. We post recordings all of our live webinars there and a lot of people find value in this content. Yes, it takes work. Jump in.

2. Consistently publish a great blog. Create articles that teach, educate, and inform and then publish them on your blog for free. Yes, you guessed it: boldly give away free information. Then make sure your readers have an easy way to subscribe to your blog via email. If the content is good enough, your readers will join your mailing list and now you have permission to talk to them. Yes, this also takes work. Jump in.

3. Give away services with live webinars. Running a webinar series is a great way to find new prospects. Create high-value presentations that teach and inform and give away all your secrets. Yes, you are still hearing me correctly: give your knowledge away for free. Then, at the end of each webinar, make an offer to give away even more stuff. Set up a form and invite people to fill it out to get a free consultation, audit, or report. Offer it to the first five people who fill it out. Make sure the consultation is a true consultation, not a sales pitch. These people will end up in your CRM and will develop the most loyalty to your organization. Yes, this takes even more work. Jump in.

So why am I advocating that you give away so much stuff for free? Because this is how you earn your audience's trust. This is how you encourage more and more people to subscribe to your content. The people who are do-it-yourselfers will not hire you anyway. The ones who see value in hiring an expert will seek you out. If this make you uncomfortable, go read Permission Marketing and then come back and read this again.

This is how you can grow your database. Now, you can (gently) promote other things in tandem with these methods. When you publish your blog, you can place an announcement for your next webinar in the sidebar. When you publish a new video, you can generate a preview and share it on social media to invite people to register. Now you can cross-promote channels and encourage others to share your content, which builds your database even more.

The nice thing is, you are building a database of quaified prospects who already like you and enjoy your content. How nice is that? Does it take work? Yes it does. Once you develop a system, however, it will run much more smoothly (or you could outsource it).

Be bold. Make your content great. Give away so much free stuff that it makes you uncomfortable. Then watch your database grow.

How to create great webinars

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, September 26, 2011

A great content marketing strategy consists of multiple channels of content that fit together in a logical progression. Each component offers something of value to your constituents and motivates them to remain attached to your brand. Ideally, it also encourages them to seek out more content and then eventually become a customer (or member, donor, etc.).

A content marketing strategy can include blogs, podcasts, ebooks, white papers, videos, and infographics. Additionally, one of the most powerful component of a strategy can be webinars.

Webinar is short for "web-based seminar" and is a presentation delivered over the web. A webinar allows you to give a presentation to tens, hundreds, even thousands of people at once at an extremely low cost. It allows you to educate, teach, and provide value to your audience which in turn can motivate them to take action and seek more information about what you do.

I've attended great webinars and bad ones. I've also presented quite a few (hopefully great) webinars. So how do you create a great webinar?

1. Use a good platform. I am a longtime customer of GoToWebinar. It's reliable, inexpensive, and user-friendly. I've attended all sorts of webinars that use frustrating applications and offer a poor experience. Sometimes the user interface is hard to use. Other times, it won't run on my Mac. GoToWebinar has consistently proven to be the best webinar platform I have ever used.

2. Create an interesting slide deck. Avoid death by PowerPoint. No one wants to see another hour-long presentation full of bullet points and text. Instead, use beautiful, high-quality photos and stick to one concept per slide. Use creative screen shots to illustrate your point and keep text to a minimum.

3. Present with passion. I'm sure we've all attended webinars in which the presenter drones on and on with no inflection and basically sounds like a robot. Just because you're talking to a screen and cannot see your audience does not give you license to be boring. Speak as if you're explaining the concepts to your best friend over dinner. Be natural and authentic. Have fun.

4. Take questions throughout. I know that some presenters like to save all questions until the end but I find that it's much more interesting to take them throughout and presentation. Answering questions as they come in helps the audience feel engaged and give you feedback on what they are finding most important. It also adds a sense of realism to the presentation since other people listening can see the interest level of other attendees, which may motivate them to jump in with their own questions.

5. Keep it short. Unless you're Chris Brogan, you should probably not try to get away with exceeding an hour. Our attention span simply cannot handle it while staring at a screen. I like to end at about 45 minutes and then take wrap-up questions. This ensures that you don't exceed your audience's attention span.

6. Don't sell. Repeat: don't sell. Your audience did not agree to give you an hour of their lives to hear a sales pitch. They expect to be educated, to learn something, and to receive value. If you provide value, they will seek you out.

7. Listen to the market. Choose topics that your customers ask you about over and over. Find ways to dig deep into issues that your constituents are struggling with. Find topics that resonate with people.

I love webinars that follow the rules above. I find them interesting, useful, and entertaining. I also frequently end up buying things from companies that present great webinars because they have provided value to me.

If you are interested in adding more strength and value to your content marketing strategy, consider a webinar series. It can be a scalable, effective, and satisfying way to meet new customers.

3 inexpensive ways to humanize your website

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, September 19, 2011

If you stop and think about it, you might notice that we are experiencing a resurgence in demand for personal relationships in business. Today's web tools and social networks are making it easier all the time for people to engage with each other on a personal level. In turn, I know I am personally losing patience with companies that hide behind auto-attendants, policies, and corporate-speak when all I want to do is talk to a real person.

That's why I love it when organizations make an effort to buck this trend and create ways to humanize the interactions I have with them. While there are many ways to create personal connections with your constituents, there are a few inexpensive things you can add to your website that will help humanize your online presence.

1. Video testimonials. Video is a powerful way to tell stories online. Whether you represent a business or a non-profit, gathering video testimonials from your customers, members, or donors can help your prospects develop an emotional attachment to your mission and your brand by hearing about it from real people. Video testimonials also create social proof, which can strengthen your credibility during the sales process.

2. Professional photography. A lot of websites launch with stock photography as the backdrop. While this can be effective, it's even better to create your own images with professional photography. Not only can you capture product and service imagery with great photos, but you can show the faces of your team and help your website visitors develop a stronger connection with them. People want to do business with people they know, like, and trust. It's easier to do all three if you can see someone's face and learn a little more about that person.

3. Blog. One great way to have a conversation with your constituents is to maintain a blog. This medium allows you to educate, assist, and speak to your audience on a regular basis. Additionally, allowing comments on your blog allows your audience to have a two-way conversation about the topic which is a great way to gather feedback and develop relationships. Make sure your blog is written in a conversational style and clearly identify the author. Blogging can also be good for SEO (hint hint).

None of these enhancements are very expensive and can add a great deal of warmth and personality to your website. Don't be afraid to humanize your website and make personal connections with your constituents. Have some other ways you can humanize your online presence? Please share them in the comments below.

How to successfully publish your print newsletter online

Posted by: Michael Reynolds, President/CEO in General on Monday, September 12, 2011

I work with a lot of associations and non-profits who are successfully using the web to communicate with their constituents. I love to see the great work they are doing and how technology helps further their missions. 

Some of the work we do involves helping these organizations adapt legacy processes to an increasingly more digital world. For example, most associations and non-profits publish some sort of newsletter. Sometimes it's a big, colorful publication published multiple times per year. Other times, it's a simpler publication published less frequently. This print publication is sometimes well-received by many constituents despite the growing emphasis on digital formats. For this reason it makes sense to continue publishing a print version.

However, many people don't read things on paper anymore and prefer digital versions of information. Unfortunately, what I see most organizations doing is simply exporting the print newsletter as a PDF and then posting it online. It gets even worse when they use a flip-book service that simulates the flipping of pages online, like a magazine. A lot of organizations do this and then wonder why no one is reading their newsletters.

They key here is context.

In a print context, the reader is more focused on spending time with the publication. It's being read offline in an environment where attention spans are a bit longer than they are online. By contrast, attention spans online are much shorter. For this reason, it doesn't make much sense to force a print publication into an online context with no adaptation.

Instead of simply posting a PDF online, try extracting individual pieces of content and publishing them online in different formats. Create smaller units of content and schedule them in different ways. For example, articles can become blogs posts. Blogs can also be sent via email. Interviews can become podcasts or videos posted to your website. Photos can be published on your website and on social networks. Short quotes can become tweets. Try taking the content from your newsletter and dripping it out slowly and in smaller chunks online. This allows you to get the content out to your constituents while adapting it to an online context.

A nice side effect of this is that you now have ready-made content for your content marketing plan.

So remember, attention spans online are short. By adapting your print newsletter to an online context, you may increase the likelihood of it being noticed and read by your constituents.